Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion at a public rally in New Delhi on Sunday that the Union Cabinet had not discussed the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was likely intended to create some space for his government on the issue of implementing the contentious NRC across the country.
However, even if the BJP-led government might have some second thoughts on a nationwide NRC but the RSS, which is the BJP’s mentor, seems to have no such doubts.
In an editorial for its December 29 issue, the RSS-controlled Organiser weekly wrote: “The Citizenship Act does not affect any of the Bharatiya citizens, NRC, whenever it takes place will have an impact only on the infiltrators [illegal immigrants]”.
The word “whenever” is key. It shows that the RSS is certain that the NRC will take place across the country — with its timing being the only possible question. It may not happen immediately, but happen it will.
The RSS position is in line with what President Ram Nath Kovind said in his address to a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament on June 20. “My Government has decided to implement the process of ‘National Register of Citizens’ on priority basis in areas affected by infiltration.” The President’s speech on such an occasion is prepared by the Government and is its agenda for the coming five years.
It’s evident that if the RSS has its way, the NRC will be implemented across the country. Ever since the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) was passed on December 11, there have been protests across the country and more than 20 persons have been killed in firing incidents around the protests. The majority of the killings had been in Uttar Pradesh and its police has come under criticism for its alleged high-handed methods.
It’s also evident from the RSS position that there is no change in its directive to the government — implement the NRC “whenever” possible. If there is any pause from the government on the issue of the NRC, which has also been linked to the decision to go ahead with the National Population Register (NPR), it’s only over a question of timing.
As has been made clear by several commentators, the NPR prepares the base for the NRC; in fact, data collected in the NPR, parallel to the 2021 census exercise, will most likely be used to constitute a new, national NRC, where citizens will be required to prove their citizenship afresh.
The scale of the protests and the sharp responses in the international media to the government’s CAA-NPR-NRC proposals don’t seem to have influenced the Modi administration enough to allay people’s fears by categorically stating that people will not be asked to prove their citizenship again.
Given that the CAA holds that “any proceeding” against a person would “abate” if they were Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan and had entered India before December 31, 2014, the apprehension among Muslims is that they would be excluded from a national NRC while their peers from other faiths would have no such problems, even without requisite documents.
